This study is a comparative historical analysis of the use and abuse of opium in Turkey and Iran from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the establishment of modern Turkish and Iranian governments during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Its major objective is to offer an explanation for the significant difference between the consumption patterns for opium in Turkey and Iran: while the peasant populations of both countries have long cultivated the opium poppy, only in Iran is there a history of opium addiction. Research among literary and administrative records will establish what the traditional attitude of both these Muslim peoples was toward the addictive use of opium. Inherent in this process of discovering what social, political, religious, and economic factors influenced popular judgments on opium consumption is an attempt to determine why alternative drugs were accepted or rejected. Subsequently, the researcher will examine what happened to these traditional attitudes when British merchants stimulated the production of opium in Turkey and Iran by providing a global market for the Muslim cultivation of the opium poppy. On the basis of this information on historical model will be constructed which will help to explain the differing rates of opium use within the societies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Such an understanding of two widely varying national attitudes toward the use of opium should facilitate the development of a multilateral drug control program.